Moral Minefields: Legal and Ethical Dilemmas

There are various ethical issues that journalists are faced with throughout their career. Some ethical dilemmas have the law to guide journalists, however many situations do not. Journalists will face a variety of issues that will test person’s moral beliefs. This could include war journalism, protecting the anonymity of sources, what and when to report with relation to court cases, privacy rights, whether to publish something that is indecent or in bad taste, accepting gifts or money and more, all of these issues have to be weighed against the public’s right to know, the law and your own personal moral values. In many of these situations you can argue both sides and this is where the difficulty lies. However as we are currently engaged in blogging, I wanted to look at the ethics behind this new online media.

Blogging is a somewhat new phenomenon and it is facing some tough ethical questions. What responsibility do we have as bloggers to verify information or to publish opinion? Also should these rules only apply to journalists who write blogs or to everyday citizens as well? The law case of Blumenthal vs Drudge is an interesting case study. Drudge claimed Blumenthal was a wife-beater and this was very damaging to Blumenthal’s reputation, as this blog had a wide influence. However the judge ruled that Drudge was not a journalist and Blumenthal lost the case. While many said that this was the correct outcome as freedom of speech was protected, others claimed that this was an example of unethical online reporting and questions the nature of this new media form. There are many blogs that are written by journalists or are written by citizens but they work in an informative capacity. Therefore shouldn’t they be held to The Journalistic Code of Ethics, as all other mediums are? This is a particularly important question as the future of journalism looks to be heading increasingly to an online form. I think as journalists we should apply the same level of journalism standards that we would apply to the current mediums. “The fundamental principle of trust between reader and writer holds equally true for journalist and blogger alike. Whether you're reporting a story or blogging a link, you have to earn your trust the same way: one reader at a time.” (Hiler, 2002)

Resources
http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Online_Journalism_-_Ethics